At my entrance, they all looked up from their work, the apprentice, after a cursory glance, returning to his bellows. Christopher Babcary gave me an enigmatic stare before resuming his polishing, and only Master Babcary evinced any pleasure at seeing me again. He left his bench and came towards me, hand outstretched.
‘Master Chapman! You’ve kept your word and come back to us, then.’
‘Did you doubt that I would?’
‘No, no! At least, I didn’t. However, Kit, there, thought that you might have had second thoughts, didn’t you, lad? I don’t know why.’
His nephew grunted something unintelligible without pausing again in what he was doing, but it seemed to satisfy his uncle. The older man turned back to me.
‘Well, I don’t suppose you need to talk to me for a second time, Master Chapman. You heard all I had to say the day before yesterday. But of the rest of my household, who would you like to speak to first?’
I hesitated about making demands, and had rather hoped that Miles would have made his own suggestion. Having been invited to state a preference, however, I said reluctantly, ‘With your permission, sir, Mistress Bonifant would seem the obvious choice.’
My host nodded vigorously. ‘Precisely my own conclusion. So I’ve told Isolda to hold herself in readiness in the upstairs room. She’s there now, I believe, so you can go up straight away.’ His face assumed an anxious expression. ‘I’m sure she’ll be able to convince you of her innocence.’
I made no answer to this last remark, but with my hand on the latch of the inner door, I paused and turned round.
‘Master Babcary, who do you think murdered your son-in-law?’ I asked.
The question took him by surprise, as I had intended that it should.
‘Wh-what do you mean?’ he stammered.
‘You don’t deny that Master Bonifant was poisoned?’
‘N-no! Of course I don’t.’ He began to fidget uncomfortably. ‘What’s this all about? I don’t understand. What are you getting at?’
‘I’m asking for your opinion — if, that is, you truly believe your daughter to be innocent — as to who you think the real murderer might be. Surely you must have some suspicions of your own.’
‘No,’ he snapped, the good-humoured smile vanishing from his face. ‘I suspect no one.’
‘To suspect no one is to suspect everyone,’ I pointed out gently, ‘including Mistress Bonifant.’
Miles Babcary was no fooclass="underline" I could see by the expression in his eyes that he was perfectly capable of following my logic, but he was not prepared to admit it.
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ he shrugged. ‘You’re talking in riddles.’
To continue to press him would have been foolish and only antagonise him further, and as master of the house I needed his goodwill. Besides, I should be no more successful in getting him to admit to his suspicions, if he had any, than I had been on Saturday. I felt sure that he was as uncertain of his daughter’s innocence as he was of anyone else’s guilt, but he was never going to say as much to me. For the time being, I must leave well alone.
‘Forgive me, sir,’ I apologised, ‘I didn’t mean to upset you. I’ll go up now and talk to Mistress Bonifant.’ But once again I paused and called across to Christopher Babcary, ‘I hope you and your lady got home safely yesterday without either of you getting too wet.’
He replied briefly that they had, while his uncle raised his eyes to heaven.
‘And which lady is this, pray?’ Miles asked. ‘No, don’t bother telling me, boy, for I’m sure I shall be none the wiser.’ He shrugged and turned back to me. ‘I’ve never known such a lad for fancying himself in and out of love every few weeks or so. First it’s one woman, then it’s another. I suppose that one of these days he’ll decide it’s time to settle down and make up his mind who it is he really wants to marry, but not just at present.’ He took a pace towards me, lowering his voice. ‘Which is why that story my son-in-law was putting about in the months before his death was so much moonshine.’
But was it? I wondered, as I climbed the stairs to the first-floor landing. Might not Christopher Babcary, at one time, have fancied himself in love with his cousin? He appeared to like older women, if the lady I had seen him with the previous day was anything to judge by. On the other hand, not only were Isolda Bonifant’s looks against her, but the familiarity of living under the same roof with someone, each day and all day, year in and year out, seemed to me to make this an unlikely possibility.
Yet I knew from past experience that I could rule nothing out, that the improbable happened in life far more often than one imagined. Perhaps young Master Babcary’s fancy had once strayed towards Isolda, and perhaps she had been flattered by his unexpected attentions. On the other hand, she must have known of his reputation for fickleness. How could she not have, living in the same house and watching him grow up? Would she, therefore, have allowed herself to succumb to his charms? But maybe she had genuinely fallen in love with him, and could not help herself.
But as yet there was no answer to any of these questions, and I knew that neither Isolda nor her cousin could be expected to admit to betraying Gideon, even supposing there was any truth in the accusation. Yet why should Gideon Bonifant lie? No man worth his salt wants to appear as the cuckolded husband, and is therefore hardly likely to make up such a story. But he could have been mistaken in the identity of Isolda’s lover, a person in whom I was beginning to believe. Her plain features may well have proved a barrier to the finding of a husband when she was a maid, but five and a half years of marriage could have given her a confidence and an air of invitation lacking in a single woman.
I stood still for a moment at the top of the first flight of stairs, looking at the two doors facing me. The left-hand one, if I remembered rightly, led into Master Babcary’s bedchamber at the back of the house; the other, beside it, opened into the family living-room, where they spent their evenings and the long winter hours of darkness together. Above me, on the second and third floors, the rest of the household slept; close quarters for five people, six when Gideon had been alive, and that was without including the little maid, Meg Spendlove, whose domain, waking and sleeping, was the kitchen.
I walked the few paces along the landing to the second door, then raised my hand and knocked before lifting the latch and going inside.
Isolda Bonifant was seated to the left of the fireplace, in one of the two armchairs, and her cousin, Eleanor Babcary was seated in the other. I was somewhat taken aback not to find my quarry alone, but the younger woman immediately rose to her feet and began to edge towards the door.
‘I’m just going,’ she said nervously.
‘Oh, sit down again, Nell,’ Isolda scolded, half amused, half irritated. ‘Master Chapman won’t eat you, you goose! Besides, he’ll want to talk to you as well as to me. He can talk to us both together.’
I didn’t know what to say. The last thing I wanted was to have the older woman prompting her cousin, putting words into her mouth, which would almost certainly be the case if Eleanor Babcary stayed. I glanced from one to the other, thinking, not for the first time, what cruel tricks nature could play. The Babcary blood, which they both shared, gave them a certain similarity of feature, enough at any rate to suggest that they were related. Yet Eleanor, with her creamy skin, blue eyes and profusion of curly auburn hair, was extraordinarily pretty — some might even think her beautiful — while Isolda could never be described as anything but plain. And the Lambert blood, which bound the latter to Mistress Shore, had also worked in her disfavour. Yet her candid blue gaze, her strength of character, her direct mode of speech, gave her, to my mind at least, an attraction that the gentle, timid charm of her cousin did not. But I suspected that not many men would agree with me.
Eleanor, obviously used to obeying her cousin, but sensing that I wished her to go, hesitated, unsure what to do. Her long, slender fingers played nervously with the pendant that she wore, twisting it round and round on its thin gold chain.